The Wilbert Coffin Affair
On July 15th, 1953, the body of Eugene Lindsey, a native of Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania was found in the Gaspé woods in Québec, mauled by bears. A week later the bodies of his 17-year old son Richard Lindsey, and 20-year old Frederick Claar, were found four kms away. The party had last been seen in Gaspé, heading to the woods to hunt bears. This is the story of these murders, and the man who was hanged for them – Wilbert Coffin.
Over sixty years later, one question remains, was he wrongly convicted?
Podcast: A Journey Through the Mystery, Trial and Aftermath
The conviction was appealed seven times - unprecedented in Canadian legal history -through various channels of the law...
The Restless Ghost
by Gene Lowall
The hope has always been there and we’re still hoping and praying something will be done and his name will be cleared..
Judith Reeder
(Coffin's niece)
Jacques Hébert, the late senator and ex-journalist, called it the biggest legal miscarriage in Quebec history and wrote a book about it. He said then-premier Maurice Duplessis pushed to find someone to take the fall for the killings so the lucrative American tourist market wouldn’t dry up.
National Post